Spotify intends to match Apple Music’s discount family plan

Yesterday, Apple announced its Apple Music music service and also confirmed that the platform will be heading to Android at some point in the future. The market may already be full of competing music services with an equal, if not larger arrays of features, but Apple’s low cost family plan could shake up the market a little bit.

Apple Music will cost $9.99 per month for an individual plan, while its family plans for up to six people will cost just $14.99 per month. Spotify and Rdio also offer family subscriptions, but these cost $14.99 for only two users, and pricing leaps up to $29.99 for five users.

It seems that Spotify has already taken notice of the price difference and states that it expects to offer more competitive pricing across different regions in the near future. Spotify already offers a $20 family plan which allows for up to five members in Sweden, so this pricing scheme could soon land in other regions as well.

“We already have similar family pricing in some markets and we expect to offer competitive pricing everywhere in the near future,” – Jonathan Price, Spotify’s global head of communications

This move would leave Google’s service, installed on Android handsets by default, lagging a little behind. Although Google Play Music’s individual subscription price already matches the competition, the service currently doesn’t offer family discounts or a way for members to part-share a subscription across different accounts. We will have to wait and see if price pressure from competing services will change Google’s mind and if the music industry is happy for content services to continue to squeeze down prices.

While Apple Music may not have turned out to be a huge game changer in terms of features, a push for lower prices and a little extra competition is likely to become very beneficial for us listeners.